Podcast Transcript Several centuries ago, many places celebrated the start of the new year in March, not January. March was originally the first month of the year, according to the Romans, which is why the Latin numbers for seven, eight, nine, and ten all appear in the months of September, October, November, and December. That, …
Podcast Transcript Some of the most important battles in history, the ones that changed the course of civilizations, are often very small battles. In 1532, a battle, really just a skirmish, took place, which completely changed the future paths of Peru, Spain, and the entire continent of South America. Despite the importance of this battle, …
Podcast Transcript Once every 1461 days, sometimes, we have a day on the calendar that we don’t normally have: Leap Day. This extra day is a necessity if our calendars are kept in sync with the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, but it also can cause problems with people and computers. Nonetheless, whatever …
Podcast Transcript The history of warfare has been a history of measures and countermeasures. When the airplane was invented, RADAR was later invented as a means of advanced detection of airplanes. RADAR then spurred the development of its own countermeasures to hide airplanes from RADAR so they couldn’t be detected. Today, these RADAR countermeasures are …
Podcast Transcript Most people in the world are required to have a passport when they travel internationally. Today, there is an international regime covering how passports are to be issued and honored between countries. However, in the past, the system was much more informal, and if you go back far enough, there was no system …
Podcast Transcript During the Second World War, one of the most distinguished American aviation units was one that no one thought would even have existed when the war began. It was a unit of African American aviators who were trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabam. Over a thousand airmen were trained and served in …
Podcast Transcript Centuries ago, the most expensive jewelry in the world wasn’t made of diamonds, rubies, or emeralds. Rather, they were made with an extremely rare substance that was occasionally found inside of clams and oysters: pearls. Pearls were so valuable that they could only be possessed by kings, queens, and emperors. Today, the manner …
Podcast Transcript The United States Constitution lays out a set procedure for the election of a president and how a winner is determined from various candidates. However, it says absolutely nothing about how those candidates are determined in the first place. Since the first presidential election, the process by which parties have chosen their candidates …
Podcast Transcript If you ever stay up at night scanning through frequencies on shortwave radio, there is a good chance you might come across something very odd and kind of creepy. You will find a station that is nothing but a disembodied voice reading off a seemingly random string of numbers. There is often an …